Red Tide

[Sailor55]

Sort of speaks for itself, I guess...

http://www.taggerband.com/Music/DBH/RedTide.html

[amiller]

Yeah man, I like that!

[Douglas Kirby]

A cool jazzy number - I enjoyed it.  I liked your vocal and the sax solo. The mix sounded fine to me.

[PhonoBrainer]

Definitely has a cool noire swagger. Or rouge.

Mix wise it was all very up front, for me each instrument is right up in the old face. My old face, anyway. Yet the vocals are delivered very well indeed, and are super clear.

I may have made a similar comment on another song before? Everything is on the dry side. So it's all sort of up front that way. It's a mixing style and I'm not saying it doesn't work. Maybe my brain us just used to some smoky jazzy depth of field in a song such as this.

 

As for the song itself, I think it's killer. Nice arrangement with a great vocal!

 

I did notice towards the end, with the lead guitar solo, the drums drop out and are very hard to hear, but they are still there. Maybe don't lose so much of that snare when the lead guitar is soloing?

 

I dunno. These are only suggestions, and you probably have  an entirely different aesthetic on reverb and depth than I do. Still some awesome work on this, I appreciated getting to hear it.

In contrast, you have a wood block thing getting hit on beat two, of almost every measure, and it is swamped in reverb. And of course, that would be something I'd want you to drop out ocassionally. So, go figure.

 

Your saxes are very sweetly played, top quality lines. But they are so dry, have you put some room on them? They would sound sweet if they dripped with rvb, you'd put decent pre-delay on them so the attack shines through clearly. I'm thinking late 80's Dire Straits-type mix, "City of New Orleans" type stuff.

 

Which you would probably not dig at all!

 

I listened several times - cool tune, and your vocal gave me a Bobby Darin kind of vibe in spots. Really nicely done.

 

cheers,

-Tom

 

[Sailor55]

Many Thanks amiller, Douglas and Tom. This tune was a long labor of love. I truly appreciate this feedback.

Tom... you're quite right about the 'dryness'. I suppose it's from many years of Steely Dan's influence. However, yours this is the kind of perspective it's useful  to have, and I certainly do take it seriously.  

I spent time worrying if that reverb-soaked wood block thing needs a break. Now I have some confirmation. It's part of a prepackaged Dimension Pro sequence that's hard to edit (the reverb is on the sample, I didn't add it), but I believe I'll make the effort to find a way to somewhat lessen it's relentlessness. It could be pulled out in appropriate places for sure. There are actually three separate drum sequences that sometimes overlay each other and sometimes not.   I'll pay attention to the drums during the guitar solo. This is one of the few songs I've produced that doesn't use either real drums or 'Additive Drums 2' in more traditional ways.

Yep, I agree, the saxes are probably dryer than they should be for a tune like this, so I think I'll deal with that too.

Other info:

The singer is not me, (I only wish). He's somebody who worked for StudioPros and went  by the name of 'Dustin'.  He may or may not still be available there. I sang the original guide vocal for him. I expect he understood the intent of the song immediately and probably slammed this vocal out of the park in one or two takes.  (StudioPros probably doesn't take more than an hour to complete any track.)

A friend did the lead guitar at the end. I pieced it together from several sweet bits. I played rhythm guitar and the piano intro. The drums were, as mentioned, Dimension Pro synths and likewise, the acoustic bass and the muted trumpet parts. The saxes were carefully chosen and edited solo samples from 'Greg Adams Big Band Brass' (a product of Big Fish Audio). I wanted the effect of a tenor and an alto trading lines. Man, it took a long time to get that down.

Thanks again everyone and cheers...  - Dan

[freddy j]

Veeery cool jazzy sounding song.  Of course the performances were wonderful but I really enjoyed the lyrics and that lead guitar playing.  Being a Florida boy I was expecting a different topic from the title (especially having experienced one of our longest red tides) but was pleasantly surprised by these lyrics and the whole doggone song.